1. Technical Field
The invention relates in general to data processing systems and to computer systems and computer displays that include data display regions which display portions of a stored date file such as a compound document. In particular, the invention relates to an improved graphical user interface having a cursor, scrollbar, and slider. More particularly, the invention relates to an improved graphical user interface for directing a data processing system to move a cursor to a viewable graphical user interface window relative to a slider positioned within a scrollbar utilizing a selectable cursor position marker which can be located within the scrollbar.
2. Description of the Related Art
A graphical user interface is a type of display format that enables a user to choose commands, start programs, and see lists of files and other options by pointing to pictorial representations and lists of menu items on a computer display screen. Choices can generally be activated by either a keyboard or a pointing device such as a mouse. Graphical user interface environments rely on icons, which are small graphic images displayed on the computer display screen to represent objects that can be manipulated by a user.
For application developers, a graphical user interface offers an environment that can handle direct interaction with the computer. Such environments free the developer to concentrate on a given application without becoming entangled in the details of a screen display or mouse and keyboard input. A graphical user interface also enables programmers to create programs to handle frequently performed tasks, such as saving a data file. The interface itself provides standard controlling mechanisms such as windows and dialog boxes. Another benefit of graphical user interfaces is that applications written for graphical user interfaces are device independent: as the graphical user interface changes to support new input and output devices, such as a large screen monitor or an optical storage device, the applications can, without modification, use those devices.
Some conventional graphical user interfaces provide a cursor and scrollbar for scrolling through pages of a document. In many types of graphical user interfaces, a vertical or horizontal bar at the side or bottom of a graphical user interface window can be utilized in conjunction with a pointing device such as a mouse, trackball, or stylus well-known in the art of graphical user interfaces for moving about in a compound document. Scrolling permits viewing of any desired portion of a document and is so named because it is the electronic equivalent of reading through a rolled (i.e., scrolled) document rather than flipping through pages of a book. A computer keyboard provides a number of "scroll-control" keys, such as the up, down, left, and right arrow keys. Application programs often offer additional methods of scrolling--for example, combining the "control" and "page up" keys to move to the beginning of a document. A cursor in a graphical user interface environment is usually a specialized on-screen indicator, such as a blinking underline or rectangle, that marks the place at which keystrokes appear when typed.
Scrollbars are typically utilized in graphical user interface environments to accomplish scrolling tasks. A vertical or horizontal bar at the side or bottom of a window that can be used with a mouse for moving around in a document can be utilized in a typical scrolling task. For example, software word-processing programs commercially available typically use two scrollbars for scrolling through pages of a document. A vertical scrollbar is usually utilized to control movement or to scroll through lines and pages of a document, while a horizontal scrollbar controls movement through words in a line.
Such conventional scrollbar systems usually comprise two arrows and a slider. Each arrow controls which direction a user desires to scroll through a document. An arrow conventionally controls movement through a document in small increments or small blocks of information, such as individual lines or a page of a document, for example. Moreover, if an arrow points in the upward direction, the document will be scrolled from its present position in the document toward the first page. If an arrow points in the downward position, the document will be scrolled from its present position in a document toward the last page of the document.
A slider is conventionally used to control movement through a document in larger increments than when the arrows are used. A slider is one form of a graphical user interface icon. Instead of incrementing by small blocks of information, the slider typically controls movement through a document in larger blocks, increments, or groups of information, such as two or more pages, for example. Therefore, when a user desires to go from the first page to the fiftieth page, the slider is usually selected and moved until page fifty is selected. The term "elevator" is also utilized to describe such a slider.
A document having multiple objects capable of running within the document such as spreadsheets, text, hotlinks, pictures, sounds, and video objects is a compound document. Within such a compound document are contained objects. An example of an object is a graphic or spreadsheet or a collection of text. In conventional graphical user interface window environments, a typical window displays a portion (e.g., a page) of a compound document. The size and position of the elevator within a window scrollbar corresponds to the size and position of the current viewable object in relation to the compound document. Because the compound document includes too many objects to view simultaneously, the user can position a mouse cursor over an arrow section of the window scrollbar and click a pointing device (e.g., a mouse) to scroll the document upward or downward, as appropriate.
A graphical user interface slider positioned within a scrollbar in a graphical user interface environment is normally defined to have a minimum size. The cursor position within the compound document can also be maintained within the scrollbar and within the slider. For example, if the cursor is positioned on the tenth page of a compound document, the slider can indicate so by the appearance of a current cursor position marker such as the phrase "Pg. 10" or a line showing the relative cursor position. Thus, if the cursor is moved to the twentieth page in the compound document, the current position marker will change to the phrase "Pg. 20," and so forth. When a graphical user interface viewable window area is small relative to the size of a selectable portion of a compound document or file being manipulated by a graphical user interface user, the minimum size of the slider can make it appear that the current position of the cursor should be in the viewable window because the current cursor position marker so indicates. However, due to the size of the graphical user interface viewable window area, the cursor may not appear in the viewable window area, which is misleading to the user.
For example, if only the top portion of the twentieth page appears in the viewable window area, and the cursor is actually positioned near the bottom of the twentieth page, a graphical user interface user is unable to view the actual cursor position in the viewable window area, although the cursor position within the slider indicates that the cursor is positioned somewhere on the twentieth page in the viewable window area. The user thus has difficulty placing the actual cursor in the viewable window utilizing the graphical user interface slider. The user can easily overshoot or undershoot the actual cursor position by a large amount and waste time and energy searching for the cursor.
Graphical user interface methods and systems exist which allow a user to automatically scroll to the actual position of a cursor within a compound document. For example, it is known that bookmarks or selection icons for selecting a specific page have been utilized in some graphical user interface environments. In such instances, a user merely selects the page to be scrolled to by activating the bookmark or selection icon. Such bookmarks or selection icons can be placed within the scrollbar for utilization by a graphical user interface. Selection icons such as radio buttons can also be used for selecting a specific page of compound document. A radio button is typically a circle with text beside it. Radio buttons can be combined to show a user a fixed set of choices from which the user can select one. The circle becomes partially filled when a choice is selected. However, as explained previously, such methods and systems do not account for those instances when the graphical user interface viewable window area is smaller than the size of the page or other selectable portion of the compound document. In these cases, the entire page selected is not viewable in the viewport or viewable window area of the graphical user interface.
Thus, a problem arises in graphical user interface environments when selecting a portion or predetermined segment of a compound document, such as a page, wherein a cursor is located. The cursor available in that portion or predetermined segment of the compound document is often not visible in the viewable window area. That is, the granularity of the graphical user interface selection process which selects a portion of a compound document is larger than the granularity of the viewing process. Accordingly, a need exists in a graphical user interface environment, for a method and system for quickly and consistently moving the slider or other selection icon to a location within the scrollbar which corresponds to the location of a cursor within a predetermined selectable segment of a compound document, such that cursor is displayed in the viewable window area. Such a method and system would save the user searching time, freeing the user to pursue other tasks via the graphical user interface environment.